Woods Hole seeks to raise $500 million, billed as largest-ever campaign for ocean research

The R/V Neil Armstrong, a research vessel used by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. James Kuo/©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has been quietly raising money for most of the five years that Peter de Menocal has been leading it.

WHOI’s goal, set in anticipation of its centennial celebration in 2030, started out around $250 million. Then, as donors stepped up, it was moved to $300 million, and then to $400 million.

Now, as it moves into the public phase of its fund-raising, the research institution in Falmouth is seeking to raise $500 million by mid-2027, a mission it bills as the largest fund-raising campaign ever undertaken to benefit ocean science. WHOI hosted a daylong celebration on Friday to kick off the campaign.

The fund-raising will help feed WHOI’s roughly $500 million endowment. The campaign comes at a time when federal grants and subsidies for scientific research are being pared back. This poses a particular challenge for WHOI because up to 80 percent of its $330 million operating budget is funded by federal research grants, de Menocal said. (WHOI is among the largest recipients of grants from the National Science Foundation, which has experienced significant cuts to its budget.)

A WHOI spokesperson said the institution is seeing a slowdown in the issuance of new federal awards, as well as some reductions in the sizes of approved grants and contracts.

WHOI, the second-largest employer on Cape Cod with 1,100 workers, has already raised close to $400 million, de Menocal said. Among the biggest donors was Paul Salem, a former Providence Equity Partners executive, and now chair of WHOI’s board of trustees; Salem announced his $25 million gift in 2024.

“The generosity and forward thinking of major philanthropists that are out there is just amazing, it’s really remarkable,” de Menocal said.

Philanthropy allows organizations such as WHOI to take up high-risk and high-impact ideas, de Menocal said, and to try new approaches to research. He admits he hasn’t ruled out raising the end goal of the campaign again.

“This is a time when the ocean is changing so rapidly, the climate is changing so rapidly, things we care about are changing so rapidly,” de Menocal said. “You need independent, unbiased science to help society figure out what to do.”